By Adedapo Adesanya
Oil posted continuous gains on Wednesday as the United States, through the Energy Information Administration (EIA), said that crude supplies showed an unexpected decline after six weeks of going strong.
As at Tuesday night, price of the international benchmark oil, the Brent Crude, was trading at $61.03 per barrel following a 2.23 percent $1.33 increase, while the US benchmark, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) Crude, was selling for $55.81 per barrel after it gained $1.33 or 2.44 percent. As for the OPEC Basket, it was trading higher at 28 cents or 0.47 percent to $59.79 per barrel.
According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the US Crude fell by 1.7 million barrels for the week ended October 18 while the American Petroleum Institute (API) revealed a rise of 4.45 million barrels.
Relatively, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) with its allies will consider whether to deepen cuts to crude supply when they next on December 5 – 6 due to indicators about weak demand growth in 2020 and this supported crude prices on Tuesday.
The cartel, which Nigeria is a member of, has agreed to cut production in turn supply by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) when it meets until March 2020.
Concerning the crisis in the Middle East, US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that a only small number of the country’s troops will remain at Syria’s oil fields despite America’s decision to withdraw from the country.
“We have secured the oil and, therefore, a small number of US troops will remain in the area where they have the oil,” he said.
Modupe Gbadeyanka